Undine eBook

it ought to have been. But it would have made
him too sad; for he has witnessed such things, and
shrinks from recalling even their shadow. Thou
knowest, probably, the like feeling, dear reader;
for it is the lot of mortal man. Happy art thou
if thou hast received the injury, not inflicted it;
for in this case it is more blessed to receive than
to give. Then only a soft sorrow at such a recollection
passes through thy heart, and perhaps a quiet tear
trickles down thy cheek over the faded flowers in
which thou once so heartily rejoiced. This is
enough: we will not pierce our hearts with a thousand
separate stings, but only bear in mind that all happened
as I just now said.

Poor Undine was greatly troubled; and the other two
were very far from being happy. Bertalda in
particular, whenever she was in the slightest degree
opposed in her wishes, attributed the cause to the
jealousy and oppression of the injured wife.
She was therefore daily in the habit of showing a
haughty and imperious demeanour, to which Undine yielded
with a sad submission; and which was generally encouraged
strongly by the now blinded Huldbrand.

What disturbed the inmates of the castle still more,
was the endless variety of wonderful apparitions which
assailed Huldbrand and Bertalda in the vaulted passages
of the building, and of which nothing had ever been
heard before within the memory of man. The tall
white man, in whom Huldbrand but too plainly recognized
Undine’s uncle Kuhleborn, and Bertalda the spectral
master of the waterworks, often passed before them
with threatening aspect and gestures; more especially,
however, before Bertalda, so that, through terror,
she had several times already fallen sick, and had,
in consequence, frequently thought of quitting the
castle. Yet partly because Huldbrand was but
too dear to her, and she trusted to her innocence,
since no words of love had passed between them, and
partly also because she knew not whither to direct
her steps, she lingered where she was.

The old fisherman, on receiving the message from the
lord of Ringstetten that Bertalda was his guest, returned
answer in some lines almost too illegible to be deciphered,
but still the best his advanced life and long disuse
of writing permitted him to form.

“I have now become,” he wrote, “a
poor old widower, for my beloved and faithful wife
is dead. But lonely as I now sit in my cottage,
I prefer Bertalda’s remaining where she is,
to her living with me. Only let her do nothing
to hurt my dear Undine, else she will have my curse.”

The last words of this letter Bertalda flung to the
winds; but the permission to remain from home, which
her father had granted her, she remembered and clung
to—­just as we are all of us wont to do in
similar circumstances.

One day, a few moments after Huldbrand had ridden
out, Undine called together the domestics of the family,
and ordered them to bring a large stone, and carefully
to cover with it a magnificent fountain, that was
situated in the middle of the castle court. The
servants objected that it would oblige them to bring
water from the valley below. Undine smiled sadly.